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Parasites

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If you’re enjoying a long-awaited holiday, whether it’s a family trip or a romantic getaway, the last thing you want is to fall ill. But thousands of international travellers every year are diagnosed with illnesses abroad, with parasites a key cause. These illnesses can wreck a holiday, leaving tourists recovering in their hotel rooms or being treated in hospital.

How have you been affected?

If you’ve been affected by a parasitic illness while on holiday, you could be entitled to make a holiday compensation claim.

What are parasitic illnesses?

You’ve probably heard of a few parasitic illnesses already – malaria and giardiasis are just two of them. But there are hundreds more that put travellers at risk, including cryptosporidiosis, fascioliasis, Chagas disease and ascariasis.

Some of these illnesses are much more common than others – giardiasis, for example, is a leading cause of holiday illness, with symptoms that resemble food poisoning. Malaria, by contrast, is more unusual for tourists, who should be taking medication to protect them from the harmful mosquito bites that cause this illness.

How do you get a parasitic illness?

Tourists can contract parasitic illnesses in a number of ways, but by far the most common source of these inconvenient and sometimes dangerous conditions is contaminated food and drink. When fruit and vegetables are washed in contaminated water, or handled by a member of staff with unwashed hands, the parasites can infect the food, ready to be passed onto a human. Seafood grown in polluted waters can also be contaminated.

Swimming pools are also a breeding ground for parasites, especially if they’re not chlorinated, filtered and cleaned properly. Some of the more unusual illnesses, such as malaria, are transmitted via a host – in this case, infected mosquitos. Many parasites can also survive outside of a human host for at least a couple of days –door handles, toilets and other surfaces can all harbour parasites if they’re not cleaned regularly.

If you’ve been affected by a parasitic illness abroad, get in touch with our expert legal team today to see whether you could make a claim for holiday compensation.

Here’s how Your Legal Friend can help you:

No win, no fee - guaranteed

95% success rate in personal injury claims

Over £200,000,000 successfully won in the last ten years alone

Help and support you with your claim against the travel company or carrier

30 years’ experience in personal injury compensation

Talk to us today

For an informal, confidential chat with one of our expert personal injury solicitors about making a claim, call us now on 0808 278 7431 (call free from landlines and mobiles). Or just complete the 'Start a new claim’ option on the right and we'll call you straight back.

Alison Saul

Alison Saul, Director of Personal Injury leads our Personal Injury, Road Accident and Holiday Illness teams. A fully qualified Solicitor with over 15 years of experience and expertise, Alison is dedicated to achieving the highest levels of compensation for her clients as well as ensuring high quality client care.

There are many people injured in accidents each year through no fault of their own and the circumstances will be difference in each instance. Our team has extensive experience of successfully managing a wide range of personal injury claims, so we can help you secure the maximim compensation you deserve.

Alison Saul,Director of Personal Injury`

Back row, left to right.

Marta Skornog

Marta began working with us in 2012 as a Paralegal. She deals with RTA and Holiday Illness cases for both English and Polish speaking clients. Outside of work, Marta enjoys yoga, socialising and going to the movies.

Anita Carroll

Anita began working with us as a Paralegal in 2010 and, after securing a training contract, qualified as a Solicitor in February 2015. She manages a mixed case load, including holiday illness cases. She is also a married Mum to 3 girls (18, 13 and 6) and they are her hobby!

Kathryn Langton

Kathryn, also a qualified Solicitor, specialises in accidents at work, public liability and accidents abroad. Kathryn deals with a wide variety of cases, often including accidents that involve serious, complex injuries.

Lee Quinn

Lee is a Fee Earner Manager, with 20 years’ experience in PI litigation. He runs both Holiday Illness and RTA cases, and has teams who deal with Polish Speaking Clients for both also. He’s a father of one who loves to travel, last year he completed the Marathon Des Sables a 230k race across the Sahara desert.

Angela Shortall

Angela began working with us as a Legal Assistant in 2008 and joined the travel team in 2017. She studied the Chartered Institute of Legal Executives (CILEX) and is currently enrolled on the company’s internal development plan. Angela loves to travel, read and socialise with her friends and family.

Marisol Marriott

Marisol completed her Law Degree in Mexico and has been a Legal Assistant with the travel team since January 2017. She likes to enjoy life with her two children and loves dancing, reading and going to the movies.

Front row, left to right.

Andrew Jones

Andrew joined the travel law team in November 2016 and became a qualified Solicitor in January 2017 after working with us for the last 5 years. Outside of work he’s usually found at gigs with friends or playing squash or football.

Michelle Craven

Michelle has worked with us as a Legal Assistant since 2011. Outside of work she enjoys spending time with her 5 year old son.

Iain McCrave

Iain is an Assistant Fee Earner with the travel team and has 9 years’ experience in litigation dealing with all aspects of the claims process. Iain enjoys listening to music and travelling.

Suzanne Wibberley

Suzanne is an Assistant Fee Earner to Lee Quinn and works with the travel team. Suzanne has 12 years experience in PI litigation and deals with both Holiday illness and RTA cases. Suzanne is currently undertaking her Ilex studies. In her spare time Suzanne enjoys going the gym and socialising with friends.

Jay Singh

Jay has been a Legal Assistant with the travel team since March 2017. He has a Law Degree and has completed the Legal Practitioners Course. Outside of work Jay enjoys reading, listening to music and spending time with family.

For most people, a compensation claim isn’t an everyday occurrence so we thought it would be helpful to explain how we manage your claim and the steps that we both need to go through.

Step 1 - Obtaining a full description of your accident or illness

We need to understand as much as possible about your accident or illness – exactly how it happened or what caused you to be ill and why, the injuries you suffered, what happened immediately afterwards and how your life has been affected as a result.

Step 2 - Obtaining your medical records

We will ask your GP and hospital for your full medical records so that we can establish the extent of your injuries or illness, the treatment you received, and how long it will take you to recover. If your treatment was carried out abroad, we can obtain and, if need be, translate those records.

Step 3 - Contacting the company responsible for your accident or illness

Once we have decided who is responsible for your accident or illness, we will inform them that you intend to claim compensation and send them the details you have provided. We will let you know their response and, if they dispute the case, we will ask you to provide your comments on their response.

Step 4 - Arranging your medical assessment

We will arrange for an independent clinician to evaluate the extent of your illness or injuries and whether they will affect your ability to work in the short or long term. In holiday illness claims, it may sometimes be possible to obtain a “desktop” report that can be done based on your witness statement and any medical records so that you don’t have to go for a medical examination.

Step 5 - Collating details of your financial loss

In addition to compensation for your injuries or illness, you can claim for another other expenses you have incurred as a result, including lost earnings, expenses travelling to medical appointments, and the cost of care and help with everyday tasks.

Step 6 - Providing you with our valuation of your losses

Once we have received all your medical reports, we can provide a valuation for your illness, injuries and associated losses. We will send this to you along with your medical report. You then need to complete and sign the medical slip and schedule of losses and return them to us.

Step 7 - Sending your valuation to the other party's insurer

Once we have received your signed medical slip and schedule of losses, we send these to the defendant’s insurer and ask for their best offer to settle the case. Often the insurance company takes 4 – 6 weeks to get back to us.

Step 8 - Negotiating the maximum settlement possible

We work hard to achieve the maximum possible settlement for your case, which can take some time to negotiate. So we text and email you to keep you up to date with our progress.

Step 9 - Issuing Court proceedings

If the defendant’s insurer refuses to make a realistic offer, then we issue Court proceedings for a hearing. It is very unlikely that you need to attend this hearing, so there’s no need to worry about it.

Step 10 - Sending you your compensation payment

Once we receive your compensation payment from the defendant’s insurer, we let you know. Most important of all, we send you your compensation payment straight away!

How long does a claim take?

Because the circumstances surrounding every claim and their effects are different, it’s very difficult to give a definitive answer on how long it takes to settle a claim. Often it depends on how quickly our clients provide us with essential information, how quickly we can get medical records and assessments, and whether the insurance companies are willing to provide realistic offers to settle the claims.

Whilst we aim to settle your claim as quickly as possible, we also want to ensure we secure the maximum compensation for you. This often means we have to do some hard negotiation with the defendants – which takes extra time. Our aim is to balance progressing the claim as fast as possible with getting you the maximum settlement.

We realise that you’ll be keen to know about the progress of your claim so we will send you regular emails and texts to keep you up to date, and also to remind you if there is any information we’re waiting for from you.

Start your claim in 10 minutes

For a FREE, confidential, no-obligation assessment of your claim, simply complete this short form. We aim to call you back within 10 minutes.

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No.1 Europa House,Conway Street,Birkenhead,CH41 4FT

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